Again, Unintended Consequences

Here’s another follow-up on a story from last year. You may recall that almost a year ago I wrote a post about the financial and economic potential of the attempt to legalize same-sex marriage in the state of California. As you probably know, the state’s Supreme Court struck down the legal provisions against such marriages, only to have them re-imposed by a ballot initiative (of possibly dubious legality) in November. At the time, analysts were suggesting that the availability of same-sex marriages could contribute as much as $370 million, although the time-frame involved was a bit nebulous. Given how badly the state’s economy has been hit by the current downturn, however, it seems likely that Californians would be happy about even $23 million a year in increased business…

Which is exactly what has happened in Massachusetts. A story being reported by the Associated Press indicates that over the past 5 years, since same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, approximately $111 million has been introduced into the state’s economy through industries that support such ceremonies. According to a study conducted at UCLA, roughly 12,000 same-sex couples have held weddings in Massachusetts, at an average cost of just under $10,000 during this period, although the researchers concede that there is a great deal of variance in the amounts spent. The implication, however, is that California, with nearly six times the population, would be likely to achieve a considerably larger effect…

Now, I’m not suggesting that such an effect, if it really happened, would be any substitute for development of new industries or business units in California; there are only so many same-sex couples with money to spend, and eventually all of the other states are going to pass similar laws, if only to cash in on the effect. Still, it is difficult to argue that the state would not benefit from $120 million a year, if only for a few years; it’s also unknown if there would be collateral effects in other business sectors not directly connected to the industry (e.g. hotels and airfare for guests at these weddings, tourism from wedding guests deciding to spend a few extra days on the Coast while they’re out for the wedding, honeymoon and anniversary trips), although it seems likely…

As in my previous post, I’m going to leave all considerations about the morality of such unions to those better equipped to carry such on arguments, so please don’t flame me over points of whether these weddings should be happening at all. The point I am trying to make here is that, as businesspeople, we would already be considered idiots (and bigoted idiots, at that, assuming there’s a difference) for rejecting someone’s business because of their race, religion, or country of origin. I can’t imagine what is any more intelligent about rejecting someone’s business because of whom they want to marry – especially in a place like California, where ANY increase in business would be a very welcome thing these days…


Decades ago, someone commented that in business, black, white, red, yellow and brown are all irrelevant; the only color we should really be concerning ourselves with is green. Maybe it’s time we added pink to that list. If the numbers coming out of Massachusetts are anywhere close to correct, we’d be idiots not to…